Grisanti spending $20,000 a day on re-election campaign

ALBANY – Mark J. Grisanti spent an average of $20,000 a day over the last three weeks on keeping himself in office and Republicans in control of the State Senate.

Of the $431,000 his campaign reported spending, $400,000 went for television ads.

Meanwhile, his opponents continue to struggle financially in advance of next week’s election.

Grisanti’s latest spending report was made public Monday by the state Board of Elections. It showed him raising $448,000, spending $431,000 and having $67,000 in the bank.

Donors included businesses, unions and trade groups doing business at the State Capitol, as well as New Yorkers and out-of-state residents still thanking him with donations because of his vote last year to legalize gay marriage.

New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, a marriage-equality advocate who helped convince four Senate Republicans to break with their party to back the law’s adoption, donated $6,500.

Grisanti’s other big donations included $10,000 from the Building and Construction Trades Council of Buffalo and $2,000 from Georgia-based gun manufacturer Glock.

He also got some Democratic backing in the form of $500 in leftover funds from a committee run by former Assembly Majority Leader Paul A. Tokasz, now a lobbyist with a politically wired firm in Albany.

The Senate Republican Campaign Committee transferred $314,000 to the Buffalo senator during the period, according to the Grisanti filing. That is on top of $180,000 that it gave him in September.

The Republican senator’s Democratic opponent in the 60th District, Michael L. Amodeo of Hamburg, reported Friday to the Board of Elections that he had raised $44,000 in the last three weeks, spent $37,000 and had $15,000 on hand.

Charles M. Swanick, a Kenmore Democrat running for the Senate on the Conservative Party line, reported Monday that he received only one contribution during the period: $5,000 from the National Organization for Marriage, a group opposing gay marriage that has previously given to Swanick for his opposition to the marriage-equality law. Swanick still lists $35,000 in outstanding loans he made to his campaign. He reported spending no campaign funds in the last three weeks.

The money flow to Grisanti does not include $60,000 that the Senate Republican Campaign Committee gave him Friday and that was made public Monday in the new filings.

Meanwhile, the state’s politically potent union representing teachers has pumped $100,000 into the Erie County Democratic Party’s coffers, a portion of which is expected to go to help the financially struggling campaign of Amodeo.

New York State United Teachers, which earlier this month canceled a pro-Amodeo ad campaign that would have cost at least $150,000, donated the six-figure amount to the county party a week ago, according to campaign filings made public Monday.

While the union did not directly give the $100,000 to Amodeo, the county party can spend the funds on behalf of him or any other candidates it may be trying to help elect next Tuesday.

Jeremy J. Zellner, chairman of the Erie County Democratic Party, was unavailable to comment.

Local members of NYSUT have been conducting phone-calling operations and neighborhood canvassing on behalf of Amodeo, and the statewide NYSUT union based outside Albany has endorsed him over incumbent Grisanti. The union, among its priorities, hopes to get changes in the state’s property tax cap law; Amodeo has said he would support changing the provision now requiring 60 percent of voters to override an annual 2 percent tax cap to a simple majority of 50 percent plus one.

The $100,000 NYSUT donation dwarfed all other contributions that the county party received in the last three weeks. In all, during the most recent reporting period, the county party raised $123,000.